Now that GOP state legislators have control over 32 state legislatures (both chambers), thanks in large part to partisan gerrymandering, some extremists are preparing to use their clout to gerrymander the US Senate.

This week in Denver, July 19-21, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) will welcome Republican state legislators and its corporate funders, including Koch Industries, ExxonMobil, K12 Inc., Peabody Energy and PhRMA, to vote on corporate legislative priorities and create cookie cutter “model” bills in task force meetings that are still closed to the press.

Right-wing extremists want to roll back the clock to enable Republican state houses and Republican governors to hijack at least 10 US Senate seats held by Democrats in Republican trifecta states, and force an ever more extreme agenda through Congress.

On the agenda for debate and discussion? A model bill to repeal the 17th Amendment, which established the popular election of United States senators in 1913.

Previously, US senators were selected by state legislatures and political party bosses beholden to powerful industries. The corruption scandals erupting from the wheeling and dealing fueled some of the great muckraking investigative journalism of the early 20th Century. In 1912, progressive Republican US Sen. Robert “Fighting Bob” La Follette campaigned for the popular election of US senators as a means of cracking down on political corruption and corporate control of the democracy. Reformers introduced direct primary elections, ballot initiatives and recall votes, in the same time period.

Now right-wing extremists want to roll back the clock to enable Republican state houses and Republican governors to hijack at least 10 US Senate seats held by Democrats in Republican trifecta states, and force an ever more extreme agenda through Congress.

Section 1. The 17th article of amendment to the Constitution of the United States is hereby repealed.

Section 2. Senators shall be elected exclusively by the state legislature, upon a majority vote of legislators present and voting in a joint session. If a vacancy shall exist for more than 180 days, then the governor shall appoint the senator to serve the remainder of the vacant term. This procedure may not be modified by state initiative or referendum.

One only needs to examine the electoral map to understand why ALEC is pushing for a repeal of the 17th Amendment now.

With the majority of states under GOP control, Republicans could snatch some 17 US Senate seats from Democrats if the state legislatures are given the right to pick Senators.

ALEC politicians know that their extreme agenda of rolling back renewables, busting unions and privatizing schools is not popular with the American public and doesn’t fly at the ballot box. No state, for instance, has approved school vouchers via the ballot box, education expert Diane Ravitch tell us.

It is not easy to pass a constitutional amendment or repeal one. Only Utah has passed a resolution urging the repeal of the 17th Amendment. But a repeal would give the GOP a supermajority in the US Senate and a greatly enhanced ability to advance extremist policies.

ALEC has debated the repeal of the 17th Amendment before at the 2013 States and Nation Policy Summit. In the “Equal State’s Enfranchisement Act (ESEA),” ALEC required state legislatures to choose a candidate for US senator that will be placed on the ballot alongside other candidates for the general public to vote on. The Act did not call for a repeal of the 17th Amendment, but gave a leg up to a favored candidate. That draft did not become a model bill.

This latest iteration is a virtual copy of a bill on the site of a group called the Equal Justice Coalition, a small 501(c)3 nonprofit based out of Long Beach, California, run by a retired real estate developer: J. Jay Feinberg. IRS filings for the group show that it was founded in 2015 and did not report revenue until 2016, when it stated receiving $46,000.

In the Claremont panel and the ALEC workshop, Feinberg, Eastman and England argue that the power and sovereignty of the states has been eroded by direct election of the Senate and that the costs of US Senate elections have spun out of control.

Although the trio appears to quote a MapLight analysis stating that it now costs $10.5 million to win a US Senate seat on average, they fail to note that MapLight President Daniel Newman attributes the high cost to the 2010 US Supreme Court decision Citizens United v. FEC, which opened the door to an unlimited flow of corporate money into campaigns and elections.

Perhaps the Equal Justice Coalition should be promoting a constitutional amendment to roll back Citizens United instead.

Mary Bottari is the deputy director of the Center for Media and Democracy (CMD). She helped launch CMD’s award-winning “ALEC Exposed” investigation in 2011 and is a recipient of the Hillman Prize for investigative journalism. Follow her on Twitter: @MARYBOTTARI.

David Armiak is a researcher and writer at the Center for Media and Democracy. He is a cultural anthropologist who has research interests not only in US politics, but also in South Korea’s social movements. Follow him on Twitter: @duboo.